


Brighter than Sunshine ~ Volume 1, Chapter 8 "Killer Frost"

by Cassie_Sandsmark, Somuchbraver



Series: Brighter Than Sunshine Volume 1 [8]
Category: DCU
Genre: Bisexual Female Character, DC AU - Freeform, F/F, Femslash, Metropolis, Metropolis University, New Cinematic Universe, Superheroics, Trans Female Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-02
Updated: 2016-01-02
Packaged: 2018-05-11 03:55:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,254
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5613085
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cassie_Sandsmark/pseuds/Cassie_Sandsmark, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Somuchbraver/pseuds/Somuchbraver
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A new Ice Villiainess attacks the city while Cassie and Samantha are enjoying their 'skip day.' Cassie suits up as Wonder Girl to go deal with the problem, and Samantha makes herself surprisingly useful.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Brighter than Sunshine ~ Volume 1, Chapter 8 "Killer Frost"

**Author's Note:**

> This story is about a romantic relationship between Wonder Girl (Cassie Sandsmark) and Rule 63'd (female) version of 'Superboy.' We've omitted the majority of the Superfamily from our universe to make this work and put this story 10 years after the events in Man of Steel. 'Superman' has been active for at least that long, and Cassie herself (as Wonder Girl) has been active for a little over 3 years, since she was 15. 
> 
> Follow Our Tumblr at (http://brighterthnsunshine.tumblr.com/) for fan-art, photo manips, information related to our story as it progresses, and more!
> 
> Mission Statement: Lady superheroes need to make out more.
> 
> Your comments and/or kudos are oxygen to us!

 

## Brighter than Sunshine ~ Volume 1, Chapter 8 "Killer Frost"

[Brighter than Sunshine Tumblr](http://brighterthnsunshine.tumblr.com)

 

Cassie reached up and wrapped her arms around Samantha's chest, pulling her up and back, down onto her chest. "Come here, beautiful, I need some _sugah_."

She giggled and wrapped her arms her, tangling her legs up with Cassie's long elegant ones. "You know you could probably be Wonder Girl- er, _woman_ , eventually? --full time and STILL be a super model."

Cassie wrapped her arms around her girlfriend's bare body, and stroked Sammi's long, dark beautiful hair as they cuddled, enjoying each other's body heat and soft skin. The blonde girl pressed her lips up against Samantha's cheek and laughed at her comment. "ME? A model? I barely even know how to apply makeup."

Samantha smirked and gave her a squeeze, kissing the corner of her mouth. "Well they do all that for you, ya know."

The blonde girl squeezed Samantha back, patting her gently on the bum. "MMmm, it's alright. I'll pass. I'm not all that big on having people leering at me. You're the only one I'm interested in having see me like that." She nuzzled the dark-haired beauty on the cheek.

Samantha smiled and kissed her cheek, stroking her hair. "Mmm, I will leer at you any time you want."

"Well that might interrupt day to day activities a little," Cassie laughed. "Cause I'm pretty sure I want you to leer at me  _all the time._ "

Samantha laughed. "I can multi-task." She made a little face. "Speaking of which..." She rolled to retrieve her clutch from the bedside table and pulled out her smart phone, yawning. "I'm on pledge-call so I figured I should probably check my texts once every couple of days..."

Cassie rolled onto her side in the bed, resting her head on her hand and raising an eyebrow at Samantha. "What's  _pledge call_?" With her free hand she straightened some of the strands of her girlfriend's long hair.

"It means the Zetas can call me in whenever they feel like it and I'm apparently obligated to come. Sounds like a good excuse to get pledges to pick up your dry-cleaning, honestly." Sam scrolled through the flurry of text messages she'd received in the last 18 hours.

"Hmmm..." Cassie raised a bemused eyebrow again and snuggled up against Samantha's side, stretching her arms and legs out slowly, sighing happily as she luxuriated in the afterglow of her multiple orgasms and the warm comfort of her girlfriend's body. "Anything interesting?"

Samantha half-shrugged, dismissing the majority of the text messages which were from people trying to track her down after she hadn't showed up for morning classes. "Not so much." She frowned a little as a mass text popped up from one of her new "sisters", "...Crazy ice bitch?" she wondered aloud.

"Crazy ice bitch?" Cassandra turned her head slightly towards Samantha's phone, her eyes getting big with interest. "...sorority queen from another house? Someone stole her prom date or homecoming queen title or something?"

The other girl smirked. "I might suspect as much, except she said ' _hashtag_ _metropolis problems'_ , which is generally..." She opened up her news app with a flick of her fingers, scanning the headlines. "It's trending on twitter, Ice Lady freezing and smashing downtown. Check it out." She showed Cassie the phone screen and scanned through a few snapshots that had already been uploaded.

Cassie sat up a little further, glancing at some of the pictures on the screen. Only a second later, she sat all the way up, pushing herself up off of the bed and leaping across the room to her dresser. "I have to go."

Samantha kept looking at the pictures on the screen with interest, scrolling through the pictures that had been uploaded on her twitter app. "You're gonna go fight this lady?"

"Someone has to," Cassie said in brusque, distracted terms. The blonde girl opened the top, underwear drawer of her dresser and pulled a matching set of black, high-waist lacey panties and a matching, padded bra, then bent down in front of her dresser and pulled open the bottom drawer, revealing a set of perfectly identical stretch stonewashed blue-jeans and fitted red-t-shirts stacked side by side, in perfectly folded stacks. Each of the blue jeans was embroidered on the back pockets with a golden Wonder Woman logo, and the T-shirts each bore an expanded, golden logo across the chest. Taking one each of the jeans and the T-shirt, Cassie pulled her clothes on as quickly as she could. "With the Man of Steel in Africa, well...." Fully clothed, Cassie leapt across her bedroom to her closet and opened it, fishing through the racks of hanging dresses until she found a small garment bag, which she unzipped to reveal a golden lasso, glistening with red striations, and a pair of silver bracelets which she slapped onto her wrists."This is my city now too."

Sam was mentally tripped up by watching Cassie assemble her costume. She'd never seen it before and she was surprised by how practical it seemed compared to the tights and capes she'd come to expect from the superhero set. She set her phone down, while Cassie slipped into a pair of black, knee-high high-heeled boots that zipped and then buckled on the side, not sure what the protocol was here. "Can you-- Do you--" She raised an eyebrow. "What should I...?"

Cassie leapt (which actually involved leaping into the air, levitating about two yards across the room and then dropping neatly to the floor on the other side, all within a single fluid motion) across the bedroom again and landed in front of the large window beside her computer desk, which she bent down and opened with a swift tug of one arm. Glancing back up at Samantha, she caught sight of her sleep-mussed, very golden blonde and not at all black hair in the bed-side mirror and again hesitated, grabbing a brush from off of her bedside table and running a it through her hair a few times to get rid of the tangles, then pulling it back into a high ponytail. "You can stay here if you like, gorgeous," The tall blonde superhero said, reaching for the window again. "Or you... if you want to go home, or to class...." She shrugged, bending down and sticking her head through the window and stepping outside of it, kneeling on the fire escape outside. Then she paused, sticking her head back in through the window and raising an eyebrow at her new girlfriend. She suddenly had a crazy idea, and a smile was starting to stretch across her face. "... _or_  ...you could come along, if you like."

She blinked a few times, recognizing that the moment had very little time for indecision. She didn't know what the size of the threat was, didn't want to make Cassie take the time to explain it, but kind of really wanted to see her in action. She nodded. "Yeah, --can I borrow clothes?"

Cassie blinked, just remembering that Samantha was totally, utterly nude for the first time since she got off of the bed. "... oh, yeah.  _Totally_. Mi Casa Su Casa, honey. Just, uh," she glanced outside of the window, looking worried, "hurry."

Sammi nodded and jumped out of the bed, super-speed twirling into her underwear and the dress from last night and neat hair. The speed-dressing was clearly a practiced move because she did it more smoothly than anything she'd seen her do with her powers so far. She borrowed a pair of leggings to go underneath the too-short-for-public dress but had to roll them up a few times to get them over her feet, shoving on a pair of Cassie's boots and lacing them tightly in order to keep them on her feet. "I'll catch up if you want."

Cassie watched Samantha reach for a pair of her boots and shrugged, gnawing on her bottom lip as the shorter girl finished getting dressed. As soon as Sammi was ready, though, she called out to her, holding a hand out through the open window. "Let's fly!"

Samantha jumped lightly out onto the fire escape and took Cassie's hand, pulling her close. Cassie raised an eyebrow at Samantha when she felt the other girl tug  _her_  into her grip instead of the other way around, and then smirked. "Afraid I might leave you behind?"

Sam grinned and kissed her on the cheek. "I'm not taking any chances. I bet I could catch up with you though."

"Yeah, well, we'll see about that,  _one day._ " Cassie teased her, tossing her hand skyward. "Now hold on tight." She gathered herself and then leapt into the sky. They jumped about thirty feet up and slightly to the right (so that they didn't have to plow through thirty feet of metal fire escape stairwells on the way up), but at the apex of the leap there was about a half a second where they hung in freefall before Cassie's powers of flight kicked in, and they suddenly blasted away through the sky on superhuman anti-gravity propulsion. Cassie chuckled, glancing over at Samantha. "I love doing that," she explained over the rushing wind, "that half a moment of freefall before I actually start to fly..."

In the moment of freefall Samantha squeezed Cassie's waist tightly and swallowed a scream, and then she yelped and chuckled as they rocketed up into the sky. When she had her breath back she swatted her girlfriend on the bum. "Well maybe I'll be prepared for it _next time_!"

"Then I'll just have to find some other way to keep surprising you," Cassie retorted with a smile. Once they broke above the tops of the buildings surrounding the campus, Cassie shot off towards the center of the city, aiming at the giant L-shaped silhouette of Lexcorp tower. "Do you remember where the reports said the frost lady Ice Queen thing was going down?"

Samantha scanned the city and pointed. "Downtown, probably the west side of the commercial center because that's where the salons are clustered."

"Alright." Cassie veered off to the west, the wind rippling through their hair as they sped through the skies at a quicker rate than she had ever flown with her girlfriend before. "You going to be okay while I ... you know, do the superhero thing?"

The speed made Samantha glad she'd had the presence of mind to put her hair up so that she didn't get a face full of her own hair. "Oh sure. I've seen these things before, ya know, I've lived here my whole life."

Cassie grinned down at her girlfriend. "Ever punched one in the face? How  _involved_  would you like to get, babe?”

Sammi smirked and shook her head, shrugging. "Probably depends on how rude she is to my girlfriend."

Cassie laughed. "I just don't want to see you getting hurt!" She told Samantha, having to yell to be heard over the wind, and over the sounds of sirens growing louder as they sped through the skies over the city, zipping in and out of streets and between buildings as they closed in on the action. "You haven't been trained for this!"

The other girl raised an eyebrow. "How do you train for fighting someone with ice powers? If you want me to watch and learn I can cope with that."

"A good mentor, someone who understands your strengths and weaknesses really intimately, can help you to prepare for a variety of situations and possible enemies," Cassie said, locating the source of the sirens slight ahead and to the left of them, and veering in the direction of the flashing lights. "I just ..." she glanced down at Samantha's face and smiled slightly, concern in her eyes. "I don't want you to get hurt."

Samantha had studied fighting enough to imagine that what Cassie said about mentors was probably true, but she wasn't about to make any promises that she couldn't be sure she could keep. She decided to make the promise she knew she could. "I'll be careful. I promise." Cassie caught a hint of hedging in the way Samantha framed her response to her concern and glanced ahead towards the rapidly-coming-up lights, hiding a grimace. On the positive side, her new girlfriend appeared to be rather durable. Even if she did wind up getting into trouble, it wasn't likely to be mortal danger that she got into - not today, anyway. A single unidentified ice villainess - how dangerous could  _that_ be? Still, though... just to be safe, Cassie decided she would let Samantha off a bit shy of the fight. Let her watch from the rooftops. If she wanted to jump down and get into things, well, Cassie couldn't stop her.

Just then, though, they cleared another row of ritzy high rises and encountered the first visible evidence of the dangers posed by a 'single unidentified ice villainess.' The street was torn up. Concrete that looked weather-torn and ice cracked was ripped up all up and down the street. Trees and shop fronts had collapsed under the weight of crushing ice that was now slowly melting into a running river through the center of the street. Cars and trucks up and down the road had been blown off of their wheels by what looked like giant icicle spears, and a series of wrecked police barricades had been utterly torn apart by what looked like a maelstrom of ice shards and blizzard snows. A half dozen people lay frozen, encased in solid ice in the middle of the street, and several more shattered blocks of ice looked like they were once parts of a number of whole human beings -- before they were frozen solid and shattered. "Holy cripes," Cassie muttered, raising her eyebrows at the destruction. "... who the hell...?"

Samantha's eyes went wide as she surveyed the damage, caught between awe and horror. She felt an apprehension with an edge of excitement when she imagined what kind of power might be able to accomplish mayhem like this. "Wow,  _ice bitch_ doesn't really adequately cover it, does it?"

"Not quite," Cassie said, unable to hide the concern in her voice. "I can't think of anyone I've ever heard of or encountered who was able to do this kind of damage with Ice Powers." Cassie flew over the next row of buildings and then came to a stop in dead air. The street beyond the first one was even worse. Police cars had been torn up and tossed aside, speared with giant ice shards, or just been frozen solid, with officers inside still shivering, slowly freezing to death, beating on the doors and windows ineffectually.  _Dozens_  of people up and down the street were frozen solid, like a perverse echo of the White Witch's Statue Garden in her Narnian palace. At least ... well, what looked like a dozen broken ice-encased corpses were scattered across the street, which was covered in ice. Shop windows were blown out, fire hydrants had frozen over, exploded, and turned into ice sculptures frozen a dozen feet above the street. A few blocks down the street, a police prisoner transfer van was on its side, its back door frozen over and then shattered with a heavy blow, its drivers frozen solid inside the cab and the back, prisoner transfer unit, empty. Even further down the street ahead were the sirens, as a police blockade of some twelve squad cars had surrounded the street on 3 sides, attempting to halt the ice villainess' advance. But the lights on those cars were going out, one after another, and the sounds of gunfire and sirens were diminishing as well.

Seeing all the helpless people encased in ice or locked in ice-covered cars, Cassie glanced down at Samantha and had a flash of inspiration, settling on a new plan, spur of the moment. "Babe, do you wanna help me out here?”

Samantha was already taking in the details of the disaster, noticing the trapped or injured people that had been left in the wake of the villain's destruction. She counted them up, already trying to figure out escape routes and solutions for the bystanders on the street. When Cassie asked her for help, the dark-haired girl was already on it. She smiled at the blonde girl and nodded. "More than eager."

Cassie nodded, counting down out loud. "Okay, get ready," she called out, as they passed over the street at a height of about four stories above the ground, "three... two.... one.... drop!" And then she released her, and flew on down the street at top speed. Samantha let go when Cassie did, dropping from the sky and bending her knees to absorb the force of her landing so she _almost_ didn't crack the street when she landed. But the ice covering the concrete beneath her shattered and blew off the ground on impact into a circle in the air all around her, and despite her efforts she couldn't prevent the force of her landing from tearing a 2 foot crack through the paving in either direction of her landing.

After resolving to get more practice with landings in particular, Sam took off and wove through the destruction looking for survivors. She found one of the cop cars in seconds and wrenched the driver side door off, tossing it aside.

* * *

Meanwhile, trusting that her girlfriend would land on her feet okay, Wonder Girl didn't look back after she dropped Samantha, but instead increased her speed and dove in towards the waning sound of the sirens at the end of the street. Up ahead of her, only a handful of the dozen cars blocking the exits from the street were still flashing their lights and sounding their sirens: more than half of them were on their sides or on their backs, with giant icicle daggers pinning them to the ground or the sides of buildings. More than half of the police officers on the scene were also dead, frozen solid and shattered by follow-up icicle attacks, and the remaining ones were reluctant to poke their heads up above their cars for risk of becoming a crushed ice smear on the road.

And standing in the middle of the street, surrounded by a wall of ice barricades of her own making, was a pale-skinned, hypothermic-looking young woman with stark blue hair down to the middle of her back who was wearing what looked like the tattered remnants of a white laboratory coat over a blue turtleneck sweater and a long, pleated skirt, tossing icicles at the police cars all around her. She was howling and screaming in rage as she advanced, slowly but steadily, rebuilding and repairing her ice-wall defenses every time a lucky officer's shot shattered one, or as she advanced too far down the street for their protection to be any good anymore. As Cassie got closer, she was able to make out some of what the Ice Villainess was screaming: "--out of my way! I'm going to  _kill him--- I'm going to KILL Lex Luthor!_ "

* * *

At the other end of the street, Samantha was trying to figure out how to best help the trapped civilians and law enforcement personnel. She'd spent a good portion of her adolescence either fearing or resenting police, so it was strange to be in a position to help them. She didn't linger, however, because the cops were exactly the sort of people to interrupt their relief that they were not dead with questions about how exactly she was doing what she was doing. She wrenched open the cars with people inside and then darted away. The newly arrived paramedics, on the other hand, didn't care who she was in the slightest. They were only concerned with the endangered patients, and, as they were _Metropolis_ EMTs, they didn't even blink when unusually strong young woman handed injuries civilians over and then seemed to disappear into thin air only to appear a moment later with another new patient. The blocks of ice with people frozen inside were less encouraging. Even when she could safely break them apart without damaging the person inside, they were often in need of far too much medical intervention than could be provided on site-- or so an apologetic EMT had explained to her. Soon the three-block stretch was just broken debris and bodies.

When there was no urgent need for her further help where she was, Sam shot down the street, following the trail of mayhem in search of more survivors. A block from the epicenter of the unfolding emergency, the storefront to a fashion boutique was sealed in ice, with a lone shop employee banging on the front window with slowly decreasing vigor. Samantha couldn't see her clearly through the ice, but because her ears were on high-alert she did hear the weakening whimpering of the ten people trapped inside. When she knocked on the window and told them to get back, the woman who'd been doing the pounding collapsed in relief, crab-walking backward toward the center of the store. The tiny black haired girl easily put her fist through ice and window combined, shattering the encasing on the store front and stepping through the hole she'd made. The inside of the store was completely incased in a thick layer of ice. One of the shop patrons had been frozen into the thick layer that lined the walls and the rest were wisely clustered together at the center of the store, shaking and fighting the oncoming unconsciousness in their fall clothes.

* * *

While Samantha busied herself with rescuing and freeing trapped civilians and innocents from ice tombs all up and down the street behind her, Cassie soared in on the blue-haired 'ice-bitch' who was mowing down the police as she battered her way through the police barricade, screaming all the while for Lex Luthor's head. While Cassie circled around the scene, trying best to figure out how to intervene, she blinked when she saw the ice villainess spray a shotgun's worth of ice shards out across the street, knocking several officers flying and impaling several of them.

"NO!" Cassie stopped thinking about a plan of attack and just dropped feet first into the ground in front of the Ice-powered woman, holding up her bracelets and deflecting the bulk of the neck blast of ice shards back at random directions towards the woman, who swatted them aside. Once the barrage had ceased, the blonde superheroine lowered her arms, stretching up to her full, authoritative height and gesturing commandingly at the blue-haired woman. "Halt--- you!"

_Okay, well, that was awkward._

Cassie had never been very good at this part, the ... well, the ' _barking orders at criminals which they never followed'_ part. 'Halt!' 'Stop where you are!' 'In Hera's name!' It all sounded so ... artificial, so forced and ridiculous to Cassie when it came from her own mouth. _Diana_ never made it sound so ... so silly. When the Amazon princess ordered someone to halt, it always sounded so regal, so commanding and authoritative. You couldn't help but to obey her. But Cassie was just ... well... Cassie. Blonde and leggy with fantastic curves and great hair. She didn't _feel_  regal or imposing. She just felt ... well, a little silly. She wanted to skip this part, and get right to the face-pummeling bad guys part. She was good at that. But Diana had always stressed that even the worst of the bad guys deserved a chance to surrender, so she held back, she waited, and she... was awkward.

"I don't know who you are, but you need to lay down your... um..." the blonde girl looked the blue-haired woman opposite of her up and down, but couldn't see any signs of visible weaponry on her. Was she projecting all of her ice-attacks from inside of herself? "your  _arms?_... and come peacefully."

* * *

A block away, Samantha was carrying each of the freezing women out of the store and then rushing them to the paramedics down the street. Perhaps because she'd just saved their lives, or perhaps it was a combination of conditions including that the tiny girl was supernaturally warm, some of the women were hesitant to leave her side. The way one woman clung to her arm as she peeled her off, trying to hand her over to a paramedic with the blanket, shook her. She didn't feel all that steady about being touched by strangers in the first place and the woman's cloying neediness took a minute to get over. One of the paramedics, all of whom had treated Samantha as a coworker, noticed her disquiet and set a hand on her shoulder. "Is this your first time?"

Sam gave the man a look that appeared offended enough to confirm his suspicion. He tried to reassure her with a smile. "...they sometimes get that way. I try not to make it personal."

Samantha blinked and gave a little smile, looking directly at the random paramedic for the first time. "...thanks." Then she disappeared from sight again, shooting down the street and back to the storefront, where the last remaining woman in the shop was having a mini-breakdown. The friend she'd been shopping with was the one frozen to the side of the shop wall, and she couldn't be persuaded to leave her.

* * *

 

The blue haired lady glared at the blonde girl blocking her path and roared, throwing her hair back, her sapphire blue eyes sparkling dangerously as she threw her arms wide and squeezed her hands into tight, blocky fists. "Get out of my way _, girl_!" A sheen of cold, dark blue-ice grew over her whole body, at least an inch-thick and colder than anything Cassie had ever seen before. Steam began rising off of her as she looked Cassie up and down, generating a ball of spikey, dark thick ice which she bounced on her right hand a time or two, before growling "... Or I'll make you!" and hurling the projectile at Cassie.

"Iiiiii don't think so!" Cassie leapt forward and caught the ball in her hand, intending to throw it back. But then she gasped, her fingers suddenly burning with piercing cold, in contact with temperatures way closer to absolutely zero than anything she'd ever encountered before. She dropped it, leaping away. Her fingers were numb where she'd grabbed the ice ball. "Ahhh!"

The mystery woman with blue hair laughed and summoned up another ice ball, which she followed up with another ice shard barrage. Cassie leapt aside again, dodging the ball, and then jumped in close, plowing through the ice-shard barrage by the dint of her invulnerability (although each of the ice-shard impacts made her feel numb and tingly where they hit her) and pummeled the 'Ice-Bitch' in the face with a one-two blow. The blows were not particularly high on the super-human strength level - not knowing anything about her, Cassie didn't want to take the risk of doing serious, mortal injury to the woman - but still at least twice as powerful as any mortal man's. But again, although the hits had their effect - the blue haired lady fell back, chips of ice flaking off of her face as she stumbled, the impact of Cassie's fists on 'Ice Bitch''s face made her feel like she was punching the cold heart of darkness, and both of her sets of knuckles burned in freezing agony, forcing her to let up. "AHhhhhhh!!" Rolling back a few feet, the blue-haired lady took advantage of Cassie's painful faltering before generating another ice spear, which she hurled at Cassie with a triumphant snarl. Dodging to the side to avoid the Ice Spear, Cass rolled to her feet and backed warily around the other woman, trying to fish for ideas.

* * *

 

Down the block, Samantha had just coaxed the last woman out of the building. The girl was practically blue from head to toe and her teeth were rattling as she pressed her face into Samantha's sweater, trying to leech heat from the warm girl underneath. She dropped her off with the paramedics just as she lost consciousness, letting the friendly one know that she hadn't found any more survivors. After dismissing them, she sped down the block until she came up against the line of police who were set up in a radius around the battle, catching her first glimpse of the ice villain who had torn the place up.

* * *

 

The blue-haired woman snarled at Cassie as they circled around each other, Cass rubbing the back of her hands and shivering as little puffs of frosty breath came out of her mouth. "What's wrong, Wonder Brat?" The 'Ice-Bitch' taunted her, shooting another barrage of ice shards her way. "Too cold for you?" Raising both of her hands above her head, she created a large spinning vortex of fiery frost and cold and snow and ice above her head and sent it screaming towards the remaining police officers, who had huddled together behind one cars which was still on its wheels, knowing that Wonder Girl would interpose herself between the blast and the officers. Which of course she did, although having learned her lesson from trying to just pummel the blue-haired woman into submission, Cassie didn't just throw herself between the frost blast and the officers. Instead, she turned to one of the wrecked, overturned police cars scattered all around her, wrenched one of its large doors off of its hinges, and leapt in front of the officers, crouching behind the door and using its metal frame as a shield. The window on the door broke and shattered under the onslaught, but the metal itself shielded Cassie from the brunt of the blast.

When the blast passed, Cassie leapt to her feet and spun around swiftly, using the centrifugal force to increase the power behind her toss as she flung the frozen door at her opponent, who caught it full in the face and crumbled backwards. Following up on the attack, Cassandra leapt into the air, streaking through the sky and across the street to grab a metal lamppost that had been blown off of its base by one of Ice's frost attacks. She picked it up in her hands, wielding it like a giant hammer as she dropped to the ground behind the downed, shaken metahuman and bringing it down on her head in an overhead sledgehammer move. "Rahhhh!"

Her opponent took the lamppost on the head and was driven to the ground, but although the ice shielding her shattered, she herself was little more than dazed, and spinning off of the ground she grabbed the lamppost weapon and coated it in ice, forcing Cassie to drop it and jump away before she lost all feeling in her palms. Catching a glimpse of Samantha's approach from further down the street, she waved her small, powerful girlfriend towards the wrecked police cars and the variety of broken bodies that lay strewn beyond the shattered barricade. "Help them!" Then she grabbed a manhole cover off of the ground, spun around again and tossed it at her foe. But the blue-haired lady, who was ready for this repeat move, caught the flying manhole cover in a blast of cold energy, turned it instantly into brittle ice, and then shattered it with a roundhouse kick.

The two women, now both wary of each other's abilities, circled each other slowly on the street. Cassie continued to rub her knuckles and cough from the cold she was feeling. "What's this all about, anyway?" She asked the blue haired woman, who was rubbing her midsection sorely and growling. "What are you tearing up Midtown for?"

The older woman snarled back, using the downtime between attacks to try and reshield herself in a fresh sheen of ice, but the ice wasn't growing back as quickly as before. "Not that it's any of your business,  _Wonder Brat,_  but I have a cold date in hell with Lex Luthor." When she waved down the street behind her, Cassie glanced up and saw to her surprise that the road they were on was a straight shot down through Midtown to Lexcorp tower. In fact, Lexcorp tower was no more than a few dozen blocks away. She had nearly made it.

* * *

 

Samantha surveyed the situation as she approached, trying to determine whether or not Cassie had the situation well in hand. When her blonde girlfriend gestured for her to help bystanders she assumed that meant that she herself was alright, so she leapt over a police car, skirting the perimeter to free the people who'd been trapped by the 'Ice Bitch' during her rampage. She was mostly punching and kicking ice, enjoying the chance to use even a fraction of her strength. She kept one ear on the fight, though, and her ears perked up when the older woman facing Cassie implied that she was headed to attack Mr. Luthor.

* * *

 

"Luthor?" Cassie raised an eyebrow at her opponent and rolled her shoulder blades, popping her neck and preparing for another round. The blue-haired chick was readying herself too. Flipping both of her hands palm up, she ignited what looked like a pair of frost flames above her palms and began to bounce them back and forth as she bent forward, still circling. "What's your beef with Luthor?"

The other woman snarled at the name. "Luthor _did this_ to me," she growled, the flames in her hands growing bigger as she gripped her fist furiously. "Luthor encouraged my experimentation, he funded my research into what happened to Crystal Frost, _Killer Frost._  He encouraged me to take risks with her calculations, to look for the flaw in Crystal's program, and he assigned that ice bitch Mercy to watch over my research." Her eyes darkened dangerously. "And when I finished, he had her lock me into the chamber and start up the experiment while I was locked inside. He DID THIS TO ME! HE ... " She began hyperventilating with rage, "turned me into a _monster_ , into  _another_ Killer Frost! He's going to PAY for this. He's...I .... RAARRRRHHHH!"

Screaming wildly, the new _Killer Frost_ charged forward, flinging frost fires at Cassie, who ducked under one and blocked the second with her enchanted bracers, which crossed over her head as she forward flipped over 'Frost' and landed behind her on her right food. As she landed, she gathered her left leg up to her chest and spun around, lashing out with a left-legged blade kick that knocked Frost forward onto her knees. Frost tumbled, collapsing to her knees, but as she started to rise she spun around, creating an explosion of jagged ice shards that burst out from her, which Cassie barely dodged by leaping straight up into the air, pulling her red and gold lasso out from her belt and whirling it around above her head.

Frost pushed off of the ground and with a huge roar created a veritable arsenal of ice shards that she shot at Cassie. "You can't beat me! You can't even TOUCH me, Wonder Brat!" Cassie took the blasts, going numb in several places while being blasted across the street into a building facade, but she held onto the lasso, gritting her teeth against the impact. "Hmmmfphhh!" She slid to the ground down the side of the building, a cascade of bricks tumbling off after her.

When Frost followed up her barrage by flinging a large ice spear at Cassie, Cassie dodge rolled to the side and then came up running, tossing the loop of her lasso over Frost's head and then spinning up into the air and across the street, securing the lasso with a tug. "I may not be able to touch you," Cassie yelled, yanking the blue-haired woman off of the street and spinning her up into the air, "but here's something YOU CAN'T DO!" Slamming her hands, and the lasso, down, Cassie slammed Frost face first into the ground, shattering the ice armor protecting her. Frost roared in anger and grabbed hold of the lasso, sending tendrils of Ice snaking up it towards Cassie, but before they could reach her the blonde girl in the blue jeans and the red top tightened her grip on the lasso again and grinned darkly, calling out loudly. "Iuppiter Invictus!"

Tendrils of golden thunder and white lightning rippled down the lasso, blasting the ice to smithereens, and then hit Frost like a thunderbolt. The crack of the impact could be heard blocks away, and windows up and down the street rattled. Frost screamed out loud, her body going rigid and then trembling as it was hit by the divine thunderbolt, and then collapsed to the ground, unconscious and gently smoking.

* * *

 

Samantha darted around the fight freeing people, mostly cops at this radius. Some of them were half-frozen, some of them were pinned down by ice, and some of them were trapped inside or under vehicles by ice walls or frozen cabs. She ripped through each obstacle and then darted away before any of the cops could address her directly. When she heard Frost explain herself though, she stopped short. Frost had her whole attention by the time the Ice Meta brought up _her mother_. The idea that either of them (Lex _or_ Mercy) might trap a Luthorcorp scientist in an experimental chamber seemed out of bounds though. It was easy to imagine that they might have been to blame in some way but to imply that either Luthor or her mother purposefully would do such a thing seemed like the ravings of a straight up broken mind. It didn't help 'Frost's' case that she'd decided the best course of action was to smash up the street instead of say, file a lawsuit.

Sam had stopped to watch the fight by the time Cassie got the lasso into play, dodging shards of ice as they flew in all directions. She threw herself at an unwary cop who was about to be impaled with ice and lifted her head swiftly from her crouched position just in time to see the lightning arc through the sky at her girlfriend's command, her eyes going wide with wonder. "Holy shit..." she murmured, as Frost fell to the ground.

* * *

 

A chorus of surprised and excited cheers went up all around Cassandra as she landed beside the downed figure of the new Killer Frost. Cops and the handful of living bystanders rose up and began to cheer for the blonde superheroine who had defeated the homicidal woman who was now lying unconscious in the middle of the street. (It was worth noting that Samantha's efforts on behalf of the people did not go entirely unnoticed either. Not a few officers and lucky survivors saw the black haired girl and cheered at her, also, or clapped her on the back.) The highest ranking officer among the surviving MMCP division walked forward to address a chilled and exhausted Cassie, who had sat down on broken street curb to try and catch her breath after first tying Frost up so tightly in her lasso that she couldn't get free. "'Wonder Girl,' huh? Good job, kid," The cop, a lady in her 40s with a sharp New England accent, said. "We've got an inhibitor collar on the way down from the Station, should be here in a couple minutes. Are you okay? Can I get you anything?"

Cassie was shivering, cold inside and out from her battle with Frost, and her teeth were chattering. Little puffs of white, cold air escaped from her mouth every time she spoke, and she sniffled, her nose red. "A cu-cup of hot chocolate and a warm blanket, if you have one?" She said, smiling tiredly up at the officer. Then she glanced around herself at the crowd and frowned, not able to spot Samantha. "Actually there was another girl, a really gorgeous one with long black hair and pretty blue eyes. She was helping break people out of the ice. Is she still here?" The officer chuckled back, patting the blonde girl on the back of the head and looking around at the crowd. "I'll see what we can scrounge up. And I'll look around for your friend while I'm at it."

Samantha was just starting to understand that neither of them were in any trouble in the aftermath of the disaster. In fact, she'd started out by ducking behind a cop car but no one seemed about to freak out or arrest anyone or anything. It hadn't been what she expected. In a moment, she wasn't sure why she'd expected something terrible to happen. She looked around and emerged into the open circle that had been left by the battle, dodging icicles on her way to Cassie and slowly, cautiously smiling as she neared the curb where the blonde girl was sitting. She sat down next to Cassie and slid an arm around her (around her shoulders anyway.) "You look like you're freezing..."

The blonde girl looked up as her girlfriend approached, smiling wearily. "Hey, you're still here." She shivered again and clamped her teeth to keep them from chattering. She smiled over at Samantha when she sat down and leaned her head on the dark haired girl's shoulder. "Well, what'd you think?"

Sam smiled and cocked her head. "You are really really epic. Like, the fight was really cool, but that thing with the lasso and the lightning? Holy shit."

Cassie smiled and ducked her head a little at Samantha's praise, some blonde hair, covered in ice chunks, dropping in front of her eyes, sighing and relaxing into Samantha's arm.

The officer from before returned with a blanket and a cup of cocoa, as offered, and wrapped the blanket around Cassie's shoulders, handing her the cup. "Oh, hey, you found your..." the officer blinked at the two of them for a moment, then smiled slightly. "Girlfriend?"

Samantha'd sat up a little when the officer back came over, and at the woman's question, blushed and dropped her arm from her girlfriend's shoulders.

Cassie smiled up at the police officer and was about to formally confirm 'girlfriend' when Samantha's arm dropped away. Cassie bit off her smile and then demurred. "She's ... just a friend." The officer smiled back (a little too knowingly, perhaps) and then bent down in front of the two girls. "Do you have any idea why this creep," she nudged the unconscious Frost with her boot, "went on a rampage today of all days?"

Cassie nodded, wiping her nose discreetly on the back of her hand and then lifting her head to clear her throat, forcing some professionalism back into her voice. "She said Luthorcorp....'did this to her,' whatever that means, exactly. She was coming for Mr. Luthor's head. And she mentioned..." she shot Sammi a glance, and then looked back at the officer. "She said something else, but I didn't catch it."

Samantha nodded in confirmation at Cassie's recounting of what the villain at their feet had said, but quirked an eyebrow when Cassie omitted her mother's name. She'd clearly heard it because she'd looked right at her. An omission of Mercy's name at a moment like this seemed an admission that she might be guilty of what she'd been accused of, which was crazy. "She was pretty unhinged. It sounded like she was an ex-Luthorcorp employee. Maybe they left it on bad terms."

" _Really_  bad terms," Cassie snorted, a little surprised by the eyebrow Sammi was arching at her. "She said they locked her in an experimentation room and let this..." she waved down at the blue haired woman, "happen to her, that they  _knew_  it would happen."

The officer glanced back and forth between the two girls, noting the emergence of some tension between them when Luthorcorp's name was brought up. She decided not to press it, however - that wasn't her particular concern. "Well, okay, that's all I needed I suppose." The officer glanced up and noticed that the truck from the station had arrived, and smiled down at the two teenage girls sitting in front of her. "You two can take off now, if you like. We'll take it from here."

She smiled and nudged Cassie, incidentally absolutely terrible at playing off her affections for the other girl the way she'd have hoped to. Every gesture no matter how slight that Samantha made toward Wonder Girl crackled and burned with a soft, playful attraction. Her charade was doomed right out of the gate. "Are you warmed up enough to go anywhere?"

Cassie nodded, standing up wearily and stretching her arms up above her head. Her breathing was normal again, and she was no longer shivering, having drunk most of her cup of hot chocolate. Handing the blanket back to the officer with a grateful smile, the blonde girl slipped an arm around Samantha's waist and glanced up at the sky. "Ready when you are."

She gave a little smile and slipped an arm around Cassie's waist. "Ready to go."

Cassie leapt into the sky, twirling swiftly as they rose. Mid-ascent, the blonde girl twisted around suddenly, shielding Samantha from a barrage of camera phones and lens-flashes as the media - having hung well back from the stand-off while Frost was on the rampage - swarmed in to try and catch a glimpse of Metropolis' new resident superheroine.

She saw the flash of the first camera and ducked her head, letting her hair slide in front of her face. She peeked over her hair at Cassie, glancing over her shoulder at the crowd below them.

Cassie's face was set in a practiced smile for the cameras as they zipped up through the air, waving slowly at the crowd until they arced over the top of the buildings and out of eyesight, at which point she sighed and relaxed, cracking her neck and cruising slowly towards the campus again.

Once they left the sight of Cassie's public Samantha set her still warm face against the other girl's neck, giving her a squeeze. "If you're still cold when we get back I can strip down and lay on top of you like a blanket."

Cassie's eyed arced towards Samantha with some surprise in them, and a little befuddled amusement. She pressed her still slightly chilled chin against the top of the blue-eyed beauty's head and giggled softly. "I think I  _would_  like that." She let them fly on in silence for a moment longer, and then she winced, bringing up a topic she wasn't sure she wanted to discuss. "Are _you_  okay?"

Sam smiled when her proposal went over well- she'd been a little concerned that she'd lost romantic traction when she'd pulled back a little on the PDAs. She freed a hand and rubbed her arm a little while they flew along, then lifted her head when she spoke again. "Me? Why wouldn't I be okay? I got to punch a lot of ice, I watched you save the day..."

"You heard some nasty things about your  _mother...."_ Cassie muttered, adding something to the thought, "And a police officer nearly outed you in front of reporters who got there about two minutes late...." The blonde girl blushed slightly and pulled some of her hair out of her face, smiling down at Samantha's hand, but then looking with concern into her face. "So, plusses and minuses, maybe?"

Samantha gave a little snort. "Well yeah, from a lady who was going on a crazed murder-spree. Not a very reliable source..." She half-shrugged. "It worked out. I'll have to be more careful next time. I didn't know we were going to be swarmed."

The blonde girl raised an eyebrow at the first part of what Sammi said, but chose not to comment on it. Personally, not professionally, she was more interested in the second half of what Samantha has said. Keeping her voice artificially light and fluffy, she asked carefully: "... so when it comes to on-campus stuff... are we  _dating,_ or just really good friends?"

She bit her tongue thoughtfully, pursing her lips a little. "I mean...it's just the campus..." She hesitated, and then smiled tentatively. "...I've got a bit of a reputation on campus so far, but it's not really for  _dating_ girls..."

Cassie glanced down at what she could see of Samantha's face, raising her eyebrows in interest. "... I'd rather people think I was more than just a conquest," she said, quietly, "If that's okay with you. At least some people. I want to be able to tell  _someone_  that I'm yours. I'm excited about that."

She smiled softly and inclined her head slightly, running her fingers along Cassie's arm. "I guess coming out to the campus is a good first step...it's not like it'll get further than that..."

The blonde girl glowed, tilting her head slightly and resting her cheek against the top of Samantha's head, "Nope. No further than that," she said quietly, thinking to herself:  _Not unless you want it to._

Samantha was pleased that her decision had resulted in such a positive reaction, perfectly happy to put off the inevitably terrible conversation with her mother for an indefinite period of time. "Good."

Cassie was still glowing slightly when she and Samantha approached the campus. Knowing that Sammi was willing to take their relationship public (within the confines of the university) made the other girl feel special and cared for, even excited. Dropping towards the campus as soon as they were over Cassie's dorm, she slipped then quickly and quietly onto the fire-escape ledge outside of her room.

**Author's Note:**

> Super-clone Science stuff: Given the various kinds of tinkering and multi-trial formulae that Lexcorp and Cadmus scientists no-doubt engaged in while trying to produce a viable Super-clone from their small sample of Kryptonian DNA we figure there's no reason that SuperBOY couldn't have been SuperGIRL (keeping in mind that gender isn't automatically tied to genitalia or chromosomes.) A lot of what follows is just speculation about how things might have gone had the Superclone been assigned biologically female at birth. It's also a fantastic excuse to write an awesome ship as femslash. And clones!


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